Saddled with a Chinese puzzle of licence conditions on one hand and the attack of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox 29 in kiddie primetime on the other, there are television programmers with an easier job than Kevin Wright, director of programming at ytv.

Since its inception in 1988, ytv has rebounded from a tenuous first four years into a Canadian specialty service success story. It’s one service, if not the only broadcasting service, to turn producing original Canadian kids programming into a profitable, necessary investment.

Wright, who started on the development side in 1989, and moved into programming in 1992, says five of ytv’s top 10 programs are often Canada-originating.

‘Our conditions of licence make Canadian production a necessity, but the reality is that original productions work for us. It’s a key part of our strategy to develop signature programs that are fun, slightly irreverent and imaginative for a first-run on ytv. It’s how we brand the network.’

With the launch of programs like Goosebumps, produced by Protocol Entertainment, and the continuing success of the likes of ReBoot, produced by BTL/Alliance and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, produced by Cinar (averaging between 250,000 and 300,000, viewers 2+ in the Nielsen average minute audience ratings), ytv continues to establish itself with its core demographic, tweens nine to 14. With disposable allowances, access to parental cheque books, and buying power that increases with age, the competition is stiff for this market.

Case-in-point, the programming skeds covering Wright’s wall, which spell out the strategies for CanWest Global Communications, ctv and Fox 29. (cbc is absent because its kids programming isn’t a extensive as the others, says Wright.)

Over the past four years, Fox has turned up the heat in tween primetime, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday to Friday, a maneuver having increasingly more impact on the Canadian audience as more cablers add Fox to their services package. How ytv deals with Fox’s after-school lineup is typical of the specialty’s program strategy, says Wright.

With Fox running The Adventures of Batman & Robin, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Gargoyles between 4 p.m. and 5:30 p.m., ytv wades into the u.s.-produced animation arena with Doug, Rugrats and Flintstones. It’s alternative rather than combative programming, opting for lighter, humor-based shows targeting a more balanced male/female split as opposed to Fox’s heavy action agenda.

‘We’ve been more successful when we don’t try to program head-to-head in every slot. We don’t try to out-blast the conventional broadcasters because they can outspend us and have bigger inventories of high-profile programming, so we find our place by offering a whole different style.’

In the other hot spot for the younger eyeballs, Saturday mornings, there’s no choice but to damn the torpedoes, go on the attack, and try to take a share of the audience between 9 a.m. and noon when every broadcaster with a pulse is vying for kids ratings.

Up against the likes of Global’s Animaniacs, Fox’s Eek!stravaganza, and X-Men and Game Nation on ctv, ytv comes in with an all-American schedule including Mighty Hercules, Spider-Man, and Mighty Max, relying on its alternative strategy only in the 11 a.m. slot where it offers Sweet Valley High, a teen soap-type live-action program, to offset the barrage of cartoons available.

The programming block is so crowded that the ratings fallout is fractured, although ytv holds its own, says Wright. Plus, as a specialty service, ytv can compensate for fragmented ratings in one slot by rotating programs throughout the schedule. While abc maxes its ReBoot window Saturday’s at 10:30 a.m., ytv is able to run ReBoot, its strongest show, Mondays at 7:30 p.m., Thursdays at 8 p.m., and again Sundays at noon, bringing in a Nielsen average minute audience ratings of between 300,000 and 400,000 viewers 2+ per half-hour program.

‘We program very differently from the conventional broadcasters. We plot for primetime but we program to kids all day so we play it two or three times, get a whole different audience and sometimes a broader demographic,’ says Wright.

The Sunday morning block, including Once Upon A Hamster, produced by Hammytime Productions, Pink Panther and Garfield and Friends, is doing best for ytv ‘partly because of alternative programming and partly because of the lack of competition.’

Traditionally, Sundays haven’t been a children’s programming slot, ‘but again, it’s an example of why ytv has been successful: we’re there to provide programming for kids when there isn’t any.’

In terms of programming attractive to ytv’s development executives, Wright says producers need to keep the programming perimeters spelled out in its licence conditions top of mind, including the stipulation that any program running in traditional primetime must have a main character that’s either a child, youth under 18, a puppet, animal, animated character, or a classical, historical or comic book character.

Licence fees in the offing range from $5,000 for a 30-minute talk show type to upwards of $50,000 for a first-run drama.

Ideal preschool programming has a subtext of learning wrapped in a fun and accessible concept. The Big Comfy Couch, produced by Radical Sheep Productions, for example. ‘It’s not in our mandate to seek to educate,’ says Wright, ‘but for the preschoolers, it’s good to have that element.’

The tween market is a little more difficult, although a good way to fail with them is to tell them the programming is for them. The now-defunct Planet Fashion and The Real World, for example.

‘Kids at this age are in a period of transition. Although they don’t see themselves as kids anymore, they know they’re not quite adults. We see part of our mandate to help them recapture the fun of being a kid, but also recognize that they can appreciate an adult level of humor and drama. They have a high sensitivity to being patronized, they’re incredibly media-savvy.’

Also key is humor, a lesson learned at the end of ytv’s first licence period in 1992. ytv went through what Wright calls its ‘earnest phase,’ but the programs getting the audience were the comedies, sitcoms and sketches. Over the past three years, the heavier stuff has been replaced by animation and comedy, and ‘ratings have gone up significantly,’ says Wright.